Creativity in a democracy may be when disparate political parties get together. The cliché, of course, is that politics is the art of the possible.
If there are no opposing political groups there is a one party State. There could be one-party systems in fully functioning democracies. If one party consistently keeps winning elections, there is a de facto one party State. But a party system that has a multiplicity of parties that get together and then fall out at the slightest provocation, is called a democracy of hung Parliaments. No, of course, there is no official terminology of that sort. But once upon a time, Sri Lanka, or then Ceylon, did have a democracy of that sort.
The fall of the Sirimavo Bandaranaike Government of 1960 was as a result of a defeat in Parliament over the Press Bill. The Federal Party was able to throw its support with Dudley Senanayake and the UNP to form a Government after the 1965 election, with Phillip Gunawardena of the MEP also offering Senanayake a prop under these circumstances.
Since then, no true creative coalition politics of any significance occurred, even though there was political instability under the stewardship of President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga who was unable on occasion to hold onto her coalition’s Parliamentary majority. In the early 2000s, this resulted in elections, and the formation of a Government under the leadership of Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, but that Government was short lived too.
Stranger
What would happen if there was an occasion for the creative coalition type of politics that occurred in the 60s were to be re-enacted? Such a situation would be far-fetched, political analysts would say.
But yet, that does not prevent us from exploring the eventuality. There have been several theories broached already. There has been talk, for instance, about a grand coalition between the United National Party (UNP), the Pohottuwa (Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna) and the Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB) led by Sajith Premadasa.
This is improbable and far-fetched, but having said that at least as possible political reality, Sri Lanka may have never been closer to such an arrangement between the two most powerful conventional (bourgeois?) political parties joining forces to blunt the momentum of the allegedly socialist Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP).
Theoretically, there have been similarly improbable political coalitions before. Philip Gunawardena’s Mahajana Eksath Peramuna (MEP) throwing its lot with the so-called bourgeois forces of Dudley Senanayake in 1965 would have been one example. The JVP joining forces with the Chandrika Kumaratunga Government and keeping the latter under probation, literally, was also a good example of improbable politics of convenience. However, a creative coalition of the type some persons are speaking of, between the UNP, SJB and the Pohottuwa would be a political first by far. It is at the point of writing a very remote possibility. However, stranger things have happened in politics — at least in other countries — that such an eventuality coming to pass can never be completely discounted.
In Greenland recently, two fiercely opposed political parties came together to form a coalition Government. A smaller but somewhat formidable political party had formed a coalition Government with one of the main political parties, but the smaller party incurred the displeasure of the two larger parties by taking up the position that only indigenous (Inuit) people should be allowed to vote in any Referendum for independence from Denmark.
The electorate — or at least the larger parties — seemed to be scandalised. This resulted in the two main conventional parties coming together to form a Government (if you need a comparison, think SJB and SLPP or Pohottuwa combining in a coalition.)
Recently, National People’s Power (NPP) heavyweight Tilvin Silva said this is exactly what is going to happen, because the two main political parties are running scared of being swamped by the JVP or the JVP-led NPP, and would join forces.
There is no sign of this happening in reality. But yet, if anything out of the ordinary is going to happen this election season, a JVP-SLPP coalition is far more likely than a JVP-SJB coalition, for instance. An ITAK-JVP coalition or ITAK-SLPP coalition are unlikely eventualities as well.
Coalition politics could be creative, and at times, strange bedfellows are made when seemingly cherished values and conventions are under threat. This is why the two major parties that are avowed rivals came together to form a Government in Greenland. Greenlanders did not want a ‘radical’ party that made Greenland independence exclusively dependent upon Inuit voters to dictate terms.
Members of these two large parties saw benefits in being tied to Denmark, a larger nation with greater economic clout than Greenland. When a smaller coalition partner threatened the present orthodoxy, the major parties said enough is enough and promptly joined forces.
Will the JVP’s apparent front-runner status — “front-runner” according to Tilvin Silva at least — result in the SJB, and the SLPP coming together after elections, as opposed to pre-election, in a totally creative coalition?
To repeat, as things stand, there is no likelihood of this happening either before or after elections. But analysts believe that today’s particular arraying of political forces would, if general elections are held first, make way for a hung Parliament.
If there is such an outcome, along with the possibility of a formidable JVP in opposition or indeed in Government, would the two major parties close ranks after elections in a political first, and combine their forces?
For clarity, for older readers at least, who may find it difficult to keep up with the quicksilver political transformations of our time, this would be like J.R. Jayewardene’s UNP coming together with Sirimavo Bandarnaike’s Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) to form a Government. Or it would be as if Dudley Senanayake and SWRD Bandaranaike combined forces to create a joint administration after the 1965 election. To say something of that sort would have been unthinkable in those polarised times, is an understatement.
If any of these things happened, however, in the 60s or the 70s, it would have signalled a tectonic political shift. The scribes at the then Lake House would have been at a loss to think of what to write, because they were too used to being referred to as the ‘forces of reaction’ against the progressive forces of Sirimavo Bandaranaike and the Left consisting of the Sama Samajists and the Communists.
A great many political analysts today feel the JVP factor is overrated. But yet, opinion is divided on that. The conventional political parties represented in the main by the SJB and the Pohottuwa forces and the UNP would likely react to reality, if the JVP does form a Government. It would be to them, as if the JVP had run away with their clothes.
That none of this is likely does not stop us journalists from responding to various angles that are being considered by the so-called experts. Some may feel it is exactly the right time for creative coalitions and hung Parliaments because in their view, massive Parliamentary majorities have had overbearing effects on Parliamentary democracy as a force for good.
Nationalist
Hung Parliaments would give room for the cunning to manoeuvre and keep political disruptors at bay, they would feel, but often hung Parliaments do no such thing, and merely foster political instability resulting in chaos and uncertainty. But if a hung Parliament becomes a reality, it would probably be by design rather than purely by accident. In the current conjuncture, it would be useful for certain political forces to seek alliances. Those whom they seek alliances with, however, may not reciprocate.
But the latter may change their minds if it somehow becomes clear that improbable alliances would be to their advantage. The Federal Party played this game in the 50 and 60s and their alliance with Dudley Senanayake was seen as a way of staving off Sinhala nationalist forces.
But in fact it was Mrs. Bandaranaike who was the expert in strategically using the political ambitions of the then parties of the Left, to her advantage. The Left ideologue N. Shanmugathasan wrote the following about how Mrs. Bandaranaike plotted to break a massive United Left Front (ULF) strike ‘from within.’
He describes how Mrs. Bandaranaike summoned the Left leadership for talks: ‘Even before the beckoning finger of Mrs. Bandaranaike had ceased to move, both N. M. Perera and Philip Gunawardena collided inside Temple Trees through different doors, while poor Peter Keuneman was left at the gate, begging for admission.’
The long and the short of it was that Mrs. Bandaranaike was able to manoeuvre the founders of the ULF into planting the seeds of its own destruction. As they say, she played it like a fiddle. Could the strategists of today do anything remotely similar when there is great confusion about the future of party politics, and the political allegiances of the day?
